Musical Contrasts

Welcome to the Winter session of classes.  Hopefully you have had a chance to begin enjoying the songs for this collection by now.  There are some fabulous mixed meter songs (the ones you can't march or waltz to).  I have become such a better musician as an adult by playing with mixed meter with little kids!  I think everyone should learn mixed meter through play!

Our dance this week is the Russian Sailors Dance by Reinhold Gliere.

It is a wonderful piece of music to move to.  The melody takes on many different personalities and give us a chance to move in many different ways.  See how creative you can be coming up with ways to dance along to the song at home this week.

We have used the Love Song of Kangding as both a large movement song dancing with scarves and a lullaby. The version in our collection of songs is a song with out words. Here is a live performance of the song, sung in Chinese, with subtitles. Listen to the difference in the timbre of the performers voices.